Weekly Intelligence Notes (WINs) are produced and edited by Roy Jonkers for non-profit educational uses by AFIO members and WIN subscribers. RADM (ret) Don Harvey contributes articles to selected WINs.

CONTENTS of this WIN

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IRAQ INTELLIGENCE -- The US/UK invasion of Iraq has started. New intelligence leads stimulated a special missile hit on a Baghdad "target of opportunity," a 'leadership command and control' target, a euphemism for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein & sons. It demonstrated to all the extent of US intelligence penetration of the Iraqi government, the total superiority in technical surveillance, and the rapid near-real-time precision targeting capability. As noted before, the invasion should be a cakewalk, given the difference in military power (a herd of elephants against a mangy dog in a closed facility), and in intelligence surveillance capabilities (the eagle-eyed against the blind). The hunt is on, and the promised strategic benefits and inevitable costs (of all kinds) of this political initiative will be balanced later. Judging from all that is visible, the invasion thus far is conducted in a laudably smart way, aiming to crack the regime and limit the damage to Iraq and to our troops.

Public discourse on the issue, such as it has been, appears to give play to a number of fears:

(1) that the war will be long and nasty -- most unlikely.

(2) that the war will unleash a wave of terrorism in America -- again quite unlikely, or we would have seen something other than unbroken tranquility since 9/11;

(3) that the "Arab street" will boil over, provoking crises for local governments -- unlikely to be beyond the control of local governments, given the presumed short duration of the war; and

(4) that Saddam Hussein will use 'weapons of mass destruction' (possibly prompting the use of nukes by the US or Israel), -- possible, but this threat is probably so limited in scope and impact as to be negligible. Saddam doesn't have nukes, and many chemical and biological weapons do not really deserve the over-hyped term "weapons of mass destruction." In addition, one must assume political rationality on the part of US and Israeli political decision-makers.

A more likely possibility is that Saddam may have made some types of biological warfare capabilities available to Islamic fundamentalist terrorist plotters. We know Saddam has biowar capabilities -- since we, the US, provided it to him in the "pre-evil" days not long ago. The US Government has extensively publicized this fear, and cited it as a reason for war. Perhaps Saddam listened. (Jonkers)

NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE UPDATE -- The Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the Hon. Peter B. Teets, testified at a Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on 12 March. His unclassified testimony was interesting and revealing. "We have twelve (12) national security space launches scheduled for 2003, compared to only one (1) conducted in 2002.... Our goal is transparency. We want the ability to see everything and know everything, while simultaneously denying our adversaries both the ability to do the same, and the knowledge that such capabilities are being used against them." With increasing bandwidth and decreasing classification restrictions, "We have made great progress over the decades in expanding the range of those exploiting these space capabilities from a small set of strategic users to multiple government agencies and virtually the entire warfighting force. But we need to do more."

The Hon. Peter Teets, who is also an Under Secretary of the Air Force, provided a rare public description of Air Force "Offensive Counter-Space" (OCS) programs for disabling the satellites of other countries. "We currently have two OCS projects underway. The first is the Counter-Communication System (CCS), a capability intended to disrupt satellite-based communications used by an enemy for military command and control communications (C3), and scheduled for first delivery in FY04."

He continued, "The second OCS program is the Counter-Surveillance- Reconnaissance System(CSRS), intended to impair an enemy's ability to obtain targeting, battle damage assessment and other information, by denying their use of satellite imagery, with reversible, non-damaging effects. CSRS is currently in the initial design phase, with operational units scheduled by FY07."

The NRO has come a long way, now publicly including active offensive and defensive space operations in addition to passive reconnaissance and surveillance. The control of Space will be a principal strategic foundation of American power supremacy as part of the worldwide PAX AMERICANA vision for the next century, like control of the sea was last century's paradigm for Great Britain's predominance. (Jonkers) (Secrecy News 18 March 03) http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_hr/031203teets.html

RED ALERT -- The Department of Homeland Security defines RED ALERT as a severe risk of terrorist attack and the highest level of anti-terrorist preparedness posture. According to Sid Caspersen, New Jersey's director of the office of counter-terrorism, if the nation escalates to RED ALERT, it means that YOU can be suspected by authorities to be the enemy if you venture outside your home. The former FBI agent said that RED ALERT would shut the state down. "Red means all non-critical functions cease. Non-critical would be almost all businesses, except those that are health-related. The government agencies would run at a very low threshold. The state police and the emergency management people would take control over the highways. You literally are staying home, is what happens, unless you are required to be out."

Terrorism's principal weapon is fear. Our authorities frequently go overboard on incidents - one unarmed tobacco farmer on a tractor (representing a message of Government duplicity in tobacco policies - subsidies on the one hand and prosecution on the other), paralyzed traffic in downtown Washington DC for two days this past week. We may anticipate authorities going over the top on Red Alert. The authorities and the media feed on fear, and also stimulate it, as has been done in previous wars. For individual citizens the bottom line simply is that one must be prepared to deal with it, both terrorist threats and federal, state and local over-the-top reactions. Do not dismiss those admonitions of stocking the house with a few days worth of supplies. (Jonkers)(Gannett State bureau, Trenton, South Jersey News, 16 March 03 //T. Baldwin) http://www.southjerseynews.com/issues/march/m031603e.htm

TOP IRAQI DEFECTOR DISAPPEARS -- The highest-level officer to defect from Saddam Hussein.s army disappeared from his home in Denmark on Monday under mysterious circumstances. General Nizar al-Khazraji, Saddam.s former head of Iraq.s armed forces (1987 to 1990), has been fighting charges of war crimes in a Danish special court, which was investigating the general.s role in Saddam.s efforts to establish government control over Iraq.s Kurds in the 1980s. He therefore was under special Danish police supervision. Khazraji earlier said that he was being targeted by Iraqi security agents. He blamed Saddam.s agents for smearing his name and fabricating information used in the Danish prosecutor.s investigation. In 1995, Khazraji, having fallen out of favor with Saddam, fled to northern Iraq and then Jordan. He survived assassination attempts . blamed on Iraqi intelligence working on Saddam.s orders . in the Jordanian capital, Amman, and later in Spain. In 1999, he sought political asylum in Denmark. Khazraji has spoken bitterly about his own failed attempts to overthrow Saddam in the 1990s, which he blamed on botched CIA support for the Iraqi opposition. It may be a minor footnote, but my guess is we'll see General Khazraji again soon in the top echelons in the new Iraq. (Jonkers) (MSNBC 17 March 03 //P. Mendenhall) http://www.msnbc.com/news/886388.asp?cp1=1

MILITARY RESTRICTS E-MAIL FROM TROOPS -- Concerned that sensitive information might leak out, some units of the United States military are starting to clamp down on e-mail communication from their soldiers and sailors, who have been using it from ships, major bases and even desert outposts around Iraq to stay in touch with family and friends, a terrific morale booster.

E-mail and Internet communications raise several potential problems: It is voluminous and thus hard to monitor; it can convey not only words but images; and it is immediate, meaning that an enemy could conceivably tap into real-time updates of, say, troop movements, the presence of a general officer, or a military outpost's perimeter defenses. The Air Force warned last week that it might limit or start blocking electronic messages because some people had sent home sensitive information, including digital images that might have compromised unit safety. The navy has said that on submarines, it is monitoring all e-mail traffic. And the army, while generally maintaining open access to e-mail, is restricting some Internet connections from certain bases.

Although the issue is valid, it appears that in the current instance one does not particularly need to be concerned that Iraqi forces would devote much attention to trying to hack into e-mail communications from U.S. troops. For the future, Defense Department policy needs to address the issue in more detail. (Jonkers) The International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com (NYT 12 Mar 03 //M. Richter)

UBIQUITOUS PUBLIC SURVEILLANCE -- Telephone bugs were discovered in offices used by French, German, and other delegates, in a building in Brussels designated to host a prospective European Union leaders' summit. Said Dominique-Georges Marro, head of the EU Council press service, "I can confirm that in the course of regular inspections, interception devices have been found .... which do not only affect France and Germany & I don't know who was on the other end of the line."

Whodunit? Who is bugging the EU? The old game is obviously alive and well. It reminds one of the story of a restaurant/bar in London, a well known place for "spies" to meet and relax. When the restaurant suddenly went out of business a plethora of British, US and Soviet mikes were found in chairs and tables. Those were the good old days, obviously still practiced by all. For the future the indications are more ominous. For example, in streets, offices and shops within cities such as London and Washington, video/audio surveillance is rapidly growing and almost ubiquitous. The world is getting more and more transparent. Technology in general, and public surveillance technology in particular, is irrevocably changing our environment, and probably our values. (Jonkers) (CNN - March 19) http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/03/19/eu.bugs/

CYBERSPACE SECURITY WARNING -- The National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) issued a public advisory to heighten awareness of an increase in global hacking activities that might result from the invasion of Iraq. According to NIPC, during times of increased international tension, illegal Internet activities escalate.(Levine 13 March)

FACE-RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY IMPROVES -- Facial recognition technology has improved substantially since 2000, according to results released yesterday of a benchmark test by four federal government agencies involving systems from 10 companies. The data, which is the latest in a series of biannual tests overseen by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is expected to encourage government security officers to deploy facial recognition systems in combination with fingerprinting and other biometric systems for applications like verifying that people are who they claim to be and identifying unknown people by comparing them with a database of images.(Levine 14 march 03)

GOVERNMENT EMAIL COMPLICATIONS -- As millions more e-mail messages clog government inboxes, the legal consequences of e-mail delivery and storage have become a bigger issue for government agencies. Agencies must follow strict rules dictated by the National Archives and Records Administration on retaining and archiving records, including e-mail that previously was considered casual communication. (Levine 14 march 03)

OMB GUIDANCE ON PRIVACY -- Federal agencies should have new privacy guidance from the Office of Management and Budget by April 2003, highlighting changes in requirements set out in the E-Government Act of 2002. In Section 208, the act sets out the first major changes to federal privacy policies since the Privacy Act of 1974. It updates requirements for agencies to perform privacy impact assessments on every information system and program, and it codifies OMB's policy for agencies to put clearly marked privacy policies on their Web sites. (Levine 13 March 03)

DIRTY WAR, CLEAN HANDS -- ETA, the GAL and Spanish Democracy, by Paddy Woodworth, Yale University Press, February 2003 (revised and updated paperback edition), ISBN 0-300-09750-6. Since September 11 the war against terrorism has been invoked as an imperative for a wide range of military and political campaigns. In fighting terrorists one faces the choice - to descend to the level of terrorists and fight dirty, or to keep clean hands. That is the topic of this book, in which the Irish author describes the policies of the Spanish government in combating the Basque terrorist group ETA over the past 40 years. He reflects on what happens when a democratic administration begins to use terrorist methods -- torture, kidnappings, and death squads -- against a terrorist group, as occurred in Spain. He argues that such a strategy undermines democracy's best arguments against terrorism in principle, and has a deeply negative effect in practice. For thoughtful readers. (Jonkers)

GERMAN NAVAL CODEBREAKERS, by Jak P. Mallmann Stowell, US Naval Institute Press, May 2003, ISBN 1-59114-308-X. The German Naval Radio Monitoring Service of WW II has been shrouded in mystery for decades. In this book the German author seeks to dispel the mystery by presenting high points of the service's interception, decoding and intelligence activities. The author covers the growth of "B-Dienst" and the integral part intelligence played in naval battles. It is to be available in May, and for historians and connoisseurs, promises an entertaining narrative with fresh insights on this long-neglected aspect of World War II. (Jonkers)

Jim Downs writes - Can you recommend some accounts written by retired intelligence personnel about US activity in Czechoslovakia from 1945 until the velvet revolution?

Also, are there any retired CIA personnel who worked in Czechoslovakia who are now available for public speaking? Contact downsjd@cox.net

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